Late yesterday, we learned that gun control was for the benefit of rich white people, which makes one ponder what exactly makes rich white people so anxious? Well, Mike Bloomberg provides us with the answer:
Bloomberg claimed that 95 percent of murders fall into a specific category: male, minority and between the ages of 15 and 25. Cities need to get guns out of this group’s hands and keep them alive, he said.
So no Second Amendment rights if you’re young black man, Mr. Bloomberg? A picture is emerging here; gun control proponents believe that we need to disarm young minority men for the benefit of rich white people. And they have the audacity to call us the racists?
Well recall that despite being mayor of New York City (including his legally dubious 3rd term), and despite spending millions to change the gun laws in other states… Bloomberg never once tried to repeal New York’s own carry laws.
NYC does have a permitting process. Odd that he’d keep in place a way for non-police to legally carry guns.
Why it’s almost like NYC May Issue was part of the city’s efforts to “get guns out of this group’s hands”.
So now Bloomberg’s openly saying that racist gun control laws are a feature not a bug?
Gun laws have been racist since their inception. (1860s?)
Wasn’t it largely Dems who started the first wave? “Blame the Gun Owner” is the answer to to every question so it’s no surprise to see it again.
Racism was a motivation behind the 1968 Gun Control Act. Those in Congress saw a need to get cheap handguns out of the hands of young black men…who at the time seemed to be doing most of the rioting in the inner cities (alledgedly.) The more things change, and so on…
It may be a racist fact, but is it true?
In a word, no. That demographic is over-represented among murderers relative to its proportion of the overall population, but not anywhere close to 95%. That’s true whether he’s talking about murderers or victims, which isn’t exactly clear from the quote.
No. About half of all gun murder victims are black, and statistically about 90% of black victims are killed by blacks. Add in the ~ 10% of all other races that are killed by blacks, and you get to about half of all murders are black, of all ages. Now the majority of those may still be in that age range, which is the most violent age group, but you’re still looking at less than half of all murderers who used a gun.
As usual, gun grabbers are making up statistics.
Bill O’reilly reported many moths ago that Blacks were 55% of the murder victims in the U.S. and I think they were an even higher percentage of the killers while they are, what ten percent of the population.
I just want to point out that it isn’t blacks make up a higher percentge of killers; rather young black men that live in depressed urban areas and particpate in drug activity or more likley to both murderers and murder victims.
Race is only a peripheral issue to policies that Cities have put in place that stifles growth in the City and the War on Drugs.
Well, of course. The New York Sullivan Act (1911) was specifically designed to keep firearms out of the hands of immigrants – unless they were gang members with the right connections.
Nothing much has changed, has it?
While Bloomberg’s numbers aren’t true, it is true that most murderers and murder victims have prior records. If only there were some way to prevent known criminals from having access to guns without abrogating the rights of law-abiding citizens…
What a novel concept! We should build facilities where the criminals can go be away from society and unable to victimize. Oh, wait. We already have that and the same liberal douches that clamor for gun control are the same ones making it impossible to see that happens.
I’ll bet you the entire 18 trillion national debt that bloomburg gets a pass on being a racist.
You win, Greg. You get to keep the entire national debt. I feel so relieved.
Look at his audience. They are the 1% of the 1%.
Bloomberg was speaking to his fellow multi-millionaires “on business trips at the Aspen Institute” (vacationing) in Aspen CO. It is about as lily white and wealthy a community as there is anywhere. The maids, cooks, and waitresses all have to live 20-50 miles out of town, as no one but the rich can afford a house or apartment in Aspen. Even the local professionals like lawyers and doctors cannot afford to live in Aspen either.
Ha! I remember this old video, which claims Aspen is 0.44% black.
http://improveverywhere.com/2006/03/08/aspen/
Strangely, it seems like you all have missed the point. He wants to take the guns out of everyone’s hands in NY, and perhaps elsewhere. Not just blacks. In fact, his point is that maintaining gun rights within the city disproportionately affects blacks, rather than “defending” them. So the gun rights are racist, not the gun control movement.
Not sure how you guys misunderstood this, but the gun rights movement has never been terribly cerebral.
If that’s true, then how come he let NYC’s CCW law stand?
He had three terms as mayor to try to remove that law. And this isn’t a man who was shy about pushing to change firearms law.
Also, your *defense* is “No! Bloomberg’s not racist! He just wants complete door-to-door style confiscation!”
Anyone else want to put odds that NM also thinks that the gun rights movement is paranoid because “Nobody wants to take your guns”?
Yeah, because cities are such hot-beds of gun rights. Without the gun rights movement, cities like Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Washington DC (and even Philadelphia) can make guns downright hard to get, or even impossible, and then the murder rate can finally come down.
Oh, wait, I forgot: these cities make it *difficult* to legally own a firearm, and it’s only because of court decisions in the last couple of years that it’s vaguely possible in at least a couple of these cities…yet Bloomberg nonetheless insists that banning guns from young black males who could *legally* own guns (which automatically excludes gang members, because of their tendency to commit crimes) will somehow make all this murder go away.
I think the gun rights momevent is more cerebral that you give credit for. For what it’s worth, I’ve followed this issue for years, and I can’t help but notice that the gun control movement has been far less cerebral than you’d like it to be.
It is no more legally difficult to own a firearm in Philadelphia than anywhere else in Pennsylvania. The only thing that is more difficult is getting a license to carry (largely because the city had illegally added additional requirements above state law), but that situation has been improved as of late.
I would have to confess that my understanding of what goes on in Philadelphia comes from what I (rather fuzzily) remember from your blog over the years: that they basically do what they can to make it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to get and carry guns, and then blame the gun violence on “easy access” to guns.
Which, while I don’t think I’d expect it to be as bad as NYC or Chicago, nonetheless rubs me the wrong way for some reason…and I think that’s why I threw in Philadelphia as one of the offenders…
To carry guns, yes. But their worst behavior was reigned in as part of a lawsuit settlement over when they illegally revealed the names of permit holders who appealed their denials.
The thing I find fascinating about these discussions is that the people making these claims know almost nothing about racism. Let’s just make something clear, the effects that a law or practice have, when they effect a specific minority group that has historically been the subject of oppression or violence, is what makes a law or practice racist, regardless of how it is specifically worded, are what make it racist.
If this is not the case, then how do you explain the failure of the Consitution to abide by slavery for more than a century? Obviously it has nothing to do with what the text says.
How do some gun controls not fit that criteria? To use just one example: most middle class white people tend not to have arrest records. Poor minorities are more inclined to. The City of Philadelphia still counts arrests (not convictions, arrests) when considering whether to deny someone a License to Carry. Often one arrest, even for a minor crime, is enough to draw a denial. Do you think that’s going to affect whites or minorities more often?
What about states that have training or expensive licensing requirements for gun ownership. What groups are more likely to afford those requirements, and what groups are going to be shit out of luck? We’d NEVER accept restrictions like this in the context of other rights.
Yes, I suppose I’ll grant your point that the fact that certain groups are restricted against gun ownership is to some degree a limit of their civil rights. But the right to gun ownership seems insignificant in relation to the right to life. By this I mean that the gun ownership is in part the cause of the deaths of many black men–the largest group of victims of fun violence. That is Bloomberg’s point, I take it.
I cannot imagine how any black person would willing want to carry a weapon. It’s like a license to get killed, a la John Crawford. And he wasn’t even carrying a weapon, but holding a representation of one. If you’re black, the rule seems to be shoot first, ask questions later. Whereas …
So then it’s the battle of two racisms. Except that gun control advocates, don’t believe that having a gun makes you safer .. But yes, Sebastian, it would be a violation of civil rights to restrict access to certain groups and then show that their restriction actually have effects like killing them disproportionally. Good luck with that.
But the right to gun ownership seems insignificant in relation to the right to life.
One conclusion I’ve come to over the years writing on this subject is that a major disconnect between the two sides it that our side sees the right to bear arms with the right to life as being inseparable, since weapons can be used to defend life as readily as being used to take it.
I cannot imagine how any black person would willing want to carry a weapon. It’s like a license to get killed, a la John Crawford.
I know several who nonetheless do. Crawford’s death I think had more to do with police culture than gun culture, and that’s a problem you’ll find plenty of people in this community interested in fixing.
But yes, Sebastian, it would be a violation of civil rights to restrict access to certain groups and then show that their restriction actually have effects like killing them disproportionally.
The guns aren’t killing anyone, as much as I hate resorting to that cliche. But few would argue Jack Daniels is responsible for some stupid college kid that chugs a fifth on a dare and ends up dead from alcohol poisoning. What people do with liberty is to a large degree a cost of it, and I don’t believe in restricting the freedoms of everyone for the fact that some can’t handle those freedoms.
I cannot imagine how any black person would willing want to carry a weapon.
Just because you can’t imagine this, doesn’t mean that you should restrict the rights of black people who would be willing to do so.
Indeed, it was a black man, Otis McDonald, who successfully challenged Chicago’s gun ban, and he challenged it precisely because black-on-black murder was, and still is, a far greater problem than police-on-black murder.
And he wasn’t even carrying a weapon, but holding a representation of one.
As an aside, this is something that can get anyone killed, not just blacks. Trying to ban guns isn’t going to make this go away, either, because weapons don’t go away just because you ban guns; indeed, Amadou Diallo was an unarmed man shot by police in New York City, where it’s so difficult to legally own a gun for most people, they might as well be banned.
Then why does he keep saying he supports the Second Amendment, and doesn’t want to take guns out of everyone’s hands?
How can a constitutional right that does nothing to qualify a specific group of people be racist? Even in the case of being given a right to do something immoral is not necessarily wrong. Laws expanding gun rights allow for expanded choice. You could argue that being given a right to murder is wrong, but you could still choose not to murder someone. Is anyone forcing you to buy a gun? Even if you did buy one because you have the right, is that wrong? No… And no. Silly comment. And I suspect he is a troll.
Your comment is incoherent, and fails to really “explain” away Bloomberg’s false ‘facts’ and real racism.
But you are cerebral? Uh, no.
Remember to hang this on Bloomberg and his astroturf every time that they falsely claim we are the paranoid racists.
The notion that disallowing anyone to own or carry a firearm will reduce the death rates of African Americans is utter nonsense. Most crime in America is black on black so disallowing anyone to carry a gun or own one for self protection only will serve to leave non-blacks more vulnerable than many of them already are.
This stuff of always blaming racism is really out of control. I am sure you have all heard about the Jackie Robinson West Baseball team, loosing there championship title. Although the boys played excellent baseball and worked very hard for the title, the team violated the residency rule, and were striped of there title. Can you believe the Coach that blew the whistle was accused by Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Father Pfleger of being racist. Yet the Coaches Wife is African American, do these people really check out what they say? How unbelievable can that be to accuse this fine Coach of being a racist. Don’t wonder why they say these things, they are in another world, and I believe its not on this earth! Prominent African Americans should rise up against these people and tell them how wrong they are!